What does it take to get you to walk more? Would it get you on your feet to know each step you take will power your cell phone? That may soon be a possibility. InStepNanoPower is developing a shoe with a device in the sole that captures the energy created with each step. This energy is typically lost as heat in our tracks as we keep walking and creating more energy. Continue reading Walk a Mile to Juice Your Cell Phone
Tag: walking
Hands On: Ryn X-Run Shoes
When MBT shoes first came out I looked into them. I ultimately decided not to get a pair. Since then I’ve remained one part curious and one part skeptical. I’ve watched all the brands come out, at every price, and I’ve watched more and more people wearing them.
One of the newer brands to reach the U.S. market is Ryn: Walking Science. Ryn is a Korean company that produces shoes that are said to tone your leg muscles as you walk. We covered Ryn earlier this spring when they were introduced to the U.S. market. We were able to get a pair for review, and here are the impressions we got. Continue reading Hands On: Ryn X-Run Shoes
Walk Your Way With Arookoo
Walking is a workout everyone – at least most people – can do. It doesn’t really require any special equipment and whether it is just around the block or around the world, there is no shortage of locations to walk. The American Osteopathic Association released the findings of a recent survey and found that walking is the most popular way in which people keep fit in a typical week. Walking just 20-40 minutes a day can add five years to your life.
Now Reader’s Digest Association and Vivity Labs have come together to create Arookoo, a combination iPhone app, companion website and Facebook game that brings users together to walk – whether they are near or far. Arookoo, which means to walk in Japanese, helps users stay motivated by sending players on challenges that require taking more steps and rewarding for each step taken in a day. It includes motivating walking challenges, GPS map-based scavenger hunts, daily team challenges and even calorie and distance tracking.
Arookoo is available as a basic free app for the iPhone and iPod Touch from the Apple App Store, or with detailed health tracking, including calories burned and distance walked for $2.99. Time to walk your way.
Trimble Updates AllSport GPS Apps for Android
Trimble released new versions of its AllSport GPS app for the Android Market. This includes AllSport GPS Pro ($3.99) and AllSport GPS (free). The programs collect more than 20 fitness stats and calculate calories burned to help people reach their fitness goals. AllSport GPS apps track 14 outdoor fitness activities including running, cycling, skiing and walking. The apps also let you access real-time weather forecasts, chart workouts over time, and view street and park maps.
Continue reading Trimble Updates AllSport GPS Apps for Android
Walk This Way, Walk That Way, Every Body Walk!
There is nothing exactly high tech, or even innovative about walking. But that won’t stop KineticShift.com from helping spread the word that walking 30 minutes a day, five days a week is the first step toward better health. This is the take-charge message from health advocates at Kaiser Permanente, who announced a new public awareness project aimed at starting a national conversation about the health benefits of walking.
Every Body Walk! is an online educational campaign aimed at getting Americans up and moving, and the site www.everybodywalk.org serves as a walking hub for news, resources on walking, health information, walking maps, how to find groups and even a personal pledge form to start walking. The site even provides a place to share stories about individual experiences with walking.
According to research more than 70 percent of all adult Americans lead sedentary lifestyles and this impacts the overall health of our country as a whole.
“The aim of the Every Body Walk! campaign is to inform Americans about the tremendous health benefits of walking,” said Bob Sallis, MD, family physician at Kaiser Permanente’s, Southern California Permanente Medical Group. “Walking is an excellent form of exercise for everyone and for those with conditions like diabetes, asthma, heart disease and depression, a regular walking regimen has the added benefit of helping to manage these diseases. I’m a strong believer in the power of walking and that’s why I literally prescribe it to my patients as front line medicine — often in place of medications.”
The Every Body Walk! campaign is powered by Kaiser Permanente. Campaign partners include the American College of Sports Medicine and their Exercise Is Medicine global initiative.
Step This Way
While many people probably walked miles during the pre-holiday season while shopping, many more probably let their fingers do the walking instead. One downside to e-commerce is that it makes it all too easy to click away and have gifts shipped right to your door. And then during the holidays chances are walking wasn’t high on the list.
Now with a New Year hours away it is time to get the legs moving. To help keep track of the distance you put in, Omron Healthcare has now released a new pedometer that utilizes dual-accelerometer technology. The Omron HJ-112 Pocket Pedometer can accurately count steps. The small device can be place vertically or horizontally on the hip, or even stashed in a pocket or in a bag.
“At Omron, we want to empower Americans to achieve and maintain personal fitness goals by providing easy-to-use and accurate fitness products,” says Jill Person, product manager. “The fresh start of a new year serves as the perfect time to set goals, start tracking steps and stay motivated with the HJ-112 so you can achieve your personal best.”
The Omron HJ-112 GOsmart Pocket Pedometer can track steps, time and distance, as well as calories and fat grams burned. It even stores the last seven days of data so you can track a full week’s worth of your exercise. It is available now for $34.99 from Omron, as well as Amazon.com. So click away with your fingers, but get out and get walking.
CES 2011: UnitedHealth Group Plans Fitness Challenges for CES Attendees
Two fitness challenges will push the health agenda at CES 2011 for health insurance agency UnitedHealth Group. Participants will compete for an iPad and Xbox 360 with Kinect over the course of the conference running from January 6-9. Continue reading CES 2011: UnitedHealth Group Plans Fitness Challenges for CES Attendees
iMapMyApp Tracks Your Whole Workout
Whatever mode you plan for your outdoor workout, iMapMy apps tracks it. MapMyFitness apps include iMapMyRun, iMapMyRide and iMapMyWalk. The iPhone programs are part of a partnership between MapMyFitness and Wahoo Fitness. The free apps work with the Fisica ANT+30 pin Sensor Key to track heart rate, which translates into other data. The app uses the GPS technology of the iPhone to record and chart workout route, pace, time, calories burned and heart rate, then saves the data to the MapMyFitness websites, whichever matches your mode of exercise. Continue reading iMapMyApp Tracks Your Whole Workout
SRAM Joins With the Advocacy Advance Partnership
This week bicycle component Sram announced its continued support for the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking & Walking. This is part of a new, three-year campaign to double federal funding for bicycling and walking by 2013. SRAM is backing this Advocacy Advance initiative by awarding up to $1.2 million to the League and Alliance over the next three years to unite active transportation advocates across the nation, and to give them tools and resources to secure even greater increased funding from existing federal transportation programs for crucial bike and pedestrian projects. Continue reading SRAM Joins With the Advocacy Advance Partnership
Hands On: Hitting the Trail With the Montrail Sabino
Over hill, over dale, I hit the dusty trail and the Sabino carried me along. After years of primarily being one to pound the pavement, I laced up with a pair on Montrail Sabino shoes and got off road. Now truth be told, given the state of many roads and even sidewalks in much of the country these days, finding “off road” isn’t as hard as it seems. But these performance running shoes are really designed for stability in true trail conditions.
The Sabinos are heavier than many of today’s lightweight running training shoes, but that’s because these need to stand up to harsher terrain. In other words you wouldn’t use a sports car where a SUV needs to go – then again, many SUVs probably couldn’t go where these shoes will take you. Made of synthetic leather and lylon mesh upper materials and thermoplastic midfoot shank, the Sabinos fit like a glove and were just right for the rather humid and warm day when I hit the trail. Whether we’ll be able to say if these were neither too hot nor too cold will have to determined at another time, but it is safe to say that these will do the job in a variety of weather conditions. Continue reading Hands On: Hitting the Trail With the Montrail Sabino